But it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any race,
an appointment of one of their number to a local office in a
community in which the race feeling is so widespread and acute as
to interfere with the ease and facility with which the local
government business can be done by the appointee is of sufficient
benefit by way of encouragement to the race to outweigh the
recurrence and increase of race feeling which such an appointment
is likely to engender. Therefore the Executive, in recognizing the
negro race by appointments, must exercise a careful discretion not
thereby to do it more harm than good. On the other hand, we must
be careful not to encourage the mere pretense of race feeling
manufactured in the interest of individual political ambition.
Personally, I have not the slightest race prejudice or feeling,
and recognition of its existence only awakens in my heart a deeper
sympathy for those who have to bear it or suffer from it, and I
question the wisdom of a policy which is likely to increase it.
Meantime, if nothing is done to prevent it, a better feeling
between the negroes and the whites in the South will continue to
grow, and more and more of the white people will come to realize
that the future of the South is to be much benefited by the
industrial and intellectual progress of the negro.
Pages:
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362